About full-screen mode in Mac OS X Lion

Full-Screen mode is a new system wide feature in Mac OS X Lion that apps can take advantage of. Many standard Lion apps such as Mail, iCal, Safari, FaceTime and Preview are full-screen apps. Apple apps such as iPhoto, iMovie, GarageBand, Keynote, Pages and Numbers were updated to work full-screen, and you can expect third party apps to follow.

You can tell if an app supports full-screen by the double-end arrow icon at upper right corner of app window. Click on this icon will switch the app to full-screen mode.

When in full-screen mode, the menu bar and the dock disappear.

Move the cursor across the top of the screen to gain access to the menu bar.

To gain access to the Dock, first move the cursor to the edge where the Dock is pinned. Then swipe or move the mouse in the same direction again. This two-steps process is designed so that the Dock will not easily block any buttons or elements on your app when you accidently move the cursor off the edge of screen.

Press ESC to quit the full-screen mode. Or you can reveal the app menu, and click on the double-end arrow icon at upper right corner to exit full-screen mode.

The shortcut keys to enter full-screen mode is Control-Command-F. You press the same shortcut keys to exit full-screen mode.

Full-screen mode is per app window. For example if you have two windows under Safari, you can have one window in full-screen mode while the other window remains the same.

OS X Lion create a Space for each full-screen app window. You can easily switch between full-screen app windows using the three fingers swipe left or right to swicth between Spaces.

When in full-screen, you can access Mission Control as usual by swiping up with three fingers.

When in full-screen, you can access Launchpad as usual by pinching with thumb and three fingers.